Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

pontifikator This is one of the two best mini-series I've seen.* It has excellent casting, excellent photography, even excellent sound. And the script, by Dennis Potter, is amazing. I'd say there are three or four master's theses in that script for those who are into such things. The series stars Michael Gambon, Janet Suzman, and Patrick Malahide as the major characters, but the supporting cast is one of the best I've seen."The Singing Detective" follows some days in the life of one Philip E. Marlow, the writer of cheap detective novels. Marlow has psoriasis, a skin disease that renders him incapable of motion, keeping him in constant pain and delirium. Marlow drifts in and out of cogency, and we follow his delirious dreams and waking life. In his dreams, Marlow has cast himself as the title character in his first novel, called -- wait for it -- "The Singing Detective." Because Marlow is truly delirious, we can't always tell when what we're seeing is actually happening and what is a part of Marlow's delusion. Interspersed with his delusions from the novel are flashbacks to Marlow's childhood in a rural English village, where his father was a coalminer. While Marlow is in the hospital, he's seen by various doctors, cared for by various nurses, and is seen by a psychiatrist. All of these seens (er, scenes) take on a life of their own, with some of the actors playing several characters. The issues Marlow is dealing with include whether his psoriasis is self-induced, the suicide of his mother (used in his novel "The Singing Detective"), his feelings about sexual intercourse, and his feelings about writing trashy novels instead of literature.Potter breaks down the usual wall between plays/movies and the audience by having his characters address the audience directly. In addition, the character Marlow, played by Gambon, plays the titular singing detective, Marlow's mother plays a German spy, and the actor Malahide plays more characters than I could keep track of. In the novel, a woman commits suicide by jumping off a bridge, and her face is revealed several times, but there are three actresses portraying the dead body, including Marlow's mother.Additionally, fictional characters from his novel interact with Marlow and other purportedly real characters from Marlow's purportedly real life. And two of the fictional characters step into meta-roles, addressing the fictionality of their existence, addressing the facts that they don't even have names and are there just to stand around. They confront the "real" Marlow and attempt to kill him, resulting in a gunfight in the hospital, where the fictional Marlow as the singing detective murders the "real" Marlow, his author. Potter had some very serious problems, and they tumble out helter-skelter in this mini-series.Dennis Potter was born in the Thirties and died in 1994 from panchreatic cancer. Potter hated Rupert Murdoch and named his fatal cancer Rupert. In 1962, Potter was diagnosed with psoriatic arthropathy, which not only caused horrible, debilitating lesions on his skin (worse than was shown on Marlow), but crippling arthritis. His hands were reduced to clubs, and he continued to write by taping a pen to his hand. It may be that the drugs used to treat his disease caused the panchreatic cancer.Potter has written about his sexual abuse by a relative when Potter was a child, and he seems to have been disgusted by sex the rest of his life. Although he denies his works are autobiographical, it's very clear he draws much of his writing from personal experiences. Several scenes in "The Singing Detective" show characters dealing badly with sexual intercourse.The series was directed by Jon Amiel, and he did a marvelous job. The music for the series was chosen from Thirties and Forties classics, and I recommend listening to the series with your best sound system.Potter also wrote the mini-series "Pennies from Heaven," starring Bob Hoskins, which I also recommend. "Pennies from Heaven" is darker than "The Singing Detective." I haven't seen the film version with Steve Martin. Some of the aggravation of Potter's writing the screenplay for MGM spills over into "The Singing Detective."*The other is "Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

cwsjr A search of the comments on "The Singing Detective" turned up only one mention of Lyndon Davies, who played Philip Marlow aged 10. His performance of this really central character was truly remarkable, and it was essential to establishing the basis for the adult Marlow's problems.It is amazing that a 10-year-old could play the part, which required, among other things, mastering the country dialect, and showing emotional states so convincingly. Probably John Amiel's direction was an important factor in Lyndon's performance -- as well as that of the other children -- but it was really up to Lyndon's talent to bring it off.Thanks, Lyndon Davies!

david94703 I was the Hollywood equivalent of an army brat, fed and bred in the industry. My father brought a well-known TV show from radio to the new broadcast medium, and I appeared on it as an extra several times; my sister was once asked which she preferred, radio or TV, and thoughtfully replied that she found the pictures on radio prettier.I've always devoted a great deal of my free time, not to mention a whole lot of my should-be-working time, to the distractions of TV, and I have a long list of favorites: Ernie Kovacs, Bilco, Rawhide, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Rockford Files, Hill Street Blues, Homicide, Simpsons, Dinosaurs, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Seinfeld, list far from complete. I got lots of enjoyment out of TV, but not much inspiration. I guess I always considered it entertainment for the masses, and I was a mass.Forest for the trees. I never even thought that TV should or could be an art medium until Dennis Potter came around. We all so needed him to have a decently lengthy career. When a artist dies with so much work obviously ahead of him, the world ends up deformed, missing obvious parts we can't describe but acutely sense the absence of.It's true, as the rough jmb3222 points out, that the industry was eager to put out anything with Potter's name on it after his death; it's true that the remaining, cobbled together oeuvre was by and large inferior to the Singing Detective. I'm grateful, nonetheless, to every hand and force that helped make them available to me, not the least of which, of course, was the raging drive of Potter's talent and his dedication to leaving as much behind for us as he could through the increasingly debilitating pain of terminal leukemia. What a guy!

lionel-libson-1 Dennis Potter's "Singing Detective" in its 1986 TV production, surpasses standard definitions of dramatic entertainment. It amazingly integrates cultural fragments and memories with unequaled acting performance(Michael Gambon), giving full-dimensional life and impact to a form pioneered by Joyce, but with a soul and involvement of the senses far beyond "Ulysses".Although it has a plus 6 hour running time, we are left with a desire to continue sharing the company of this incredibly complex man. No other book, movie, etc. has so completely affected me as a work of art.The visuals of this production perfectly match the "mindworld" of Marlow as he struggles with agonizing disease, childhood memories and the birth pangs of artistic creation.